Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1108 page)

“I think Mr. Fritz was mistaken, when he told you she had never left her room,” said the housemaid. “I am next to certain I heard her whispering, early this morning, with crazy Jack. Do you think she will follow the hearse to the Deadhouse, with Mr. Keller and the doctor?”

“Hush!” said Joseph. As he spoke, the heavy wheels of the hearse were heard in the street. He led the way to the top of the kitchen stairs. “Wait here,” he whispered, “while I answer the door — and you will see.”

Upstairs, in the drawing-room, Fritz and Minna were alone. Madame Fontaine’s door, closed to everyone, was a closed door even to her daughter.

Fritz had refused to let Minna ask a second time to be let in. “It will soon be your husband’s privilege, my darling, to take care of you and comfort you,” he said. “At this dreadful time, there must be no separation between you and me.”

His arm was round her; her head rested on his shoulder. She looked up at him timidly.

“Are you not going with them to the cemetery?” she asked.

“I am going to stay with you, Minna.”

“You were angry yesterday, Fritz, when you met me with my mother. Don’t think the worse of her, because she is ill and troubled in her mind. You will make allowances for her as I do — won’t you?”

“My sweet girl, there is nothing I won’t do to please you! Kiss me, Minna. Again! again!”

On the higher floor of the house, Mr. Keller and the doctor were waiting in the chamber of death.

Jack kept his silent watch by the side of the couch, on which the one human creature who had befriended him lay hushed in the last earthly repose. Still, from time to time, he whispered to himself the sad senseless words, “No, no, no — not dead, Mistress! Not dead yet!”

There was a soft knock at the door. The doctor opened it. Madame Fontaine stood before him. She spoke in dull monotonous tones — standing in the doorway; refusing, when she was invited by a gesture, to enter the room.

“The hearse has stopped at the door,” she said. “The men wish to ask you if they can come in.”

It was Joseph’s duty to make this announcement. Her motive for forestalling him showed itself dimly in her eyes. They were not on Mr. Keller; not on the doctor; not on the couch. From the moment when the door had been opened to her, she fixed her steady look on Jack. It never moved until the bearers of the dead hid him from her when they entered the room.

The procession passed out. Jack, at Mr. Keller’s command, followed last. Standing back at the doorway, Madame Fontaine caught him by the arm as he came out.

“You were half asleep this morning,” she whispered. “You are not half asleep now. How did you get the blue-glass bottle? I insist on knowing.”

“I won’t tell you!”

Madame Fontaine altered her tone.

“Will you tell me who emptied the bottle? I have always been kind to you — it isn’t much to ask. Who emptied it?”

His variable temper changed; he lifted his head proudly. Absolutely sure of his mistress’s recovery, he now claimed the merit that was his due.

“I
emptied it!”

“How did you empty it?” she asked faintly. “Did you throw away what was in it? Did you give it to anybody?”

He seized her in his turn — and dragged her to the railing of the corridor. “Look there!” he cried, pointing to the bearers, slowly carrying their burden down the stairs. “Do you see her, resting on her little sofa till she recovers? I gave it to her!”

He left her, and descended the stairs. She staggered back against the wall of the corridor. Her sight seemed to be affected. She groped for the stair-rail, and held by it. The air was wafted up through the open street-door. It helped her to rally her energies. She went down steadily, step by step, to the first landing — paused, and went down again. Arrived in the hall, she advanced to Mr. Keller, and spoke to him.

“Are you going to see the body laid in the Deadhouse?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any objection to my seeing it too?”

“The authorities have no objection to admitting friends of the deceased person,” Mr. Keller answered. He looked at her searchingly, and added, “Do
you
go as a friend?”

It was rashly said; and he knew it. The magistrates had decided that the first inquiries should be conducted with the greatest secrecy. For that day, at least, the inmates of the house were to enjoy their usual liberty of action (under private superintendence), so that no suspicion might be excited in the mind of the guilty person. Conscious of having trifled with the serious necessity of keeping a guard over his tongue, Mr. Keller waited anxiously for Madame Fontaine’s reply.

Not a word fell from her lips. There was a slight hardening of her face, and no more. In ominous silence, she turned about and ascended the stairs again.

CHAPTER XVII

The departure from the house was interrupted by an unforeseen cause of delay.

Jack refused to follow the hearse with Doctor Dormann and Mr. Keller. “I won’t lose sight of her!” he cried — ”no! not for a moment! Of all living creatures, I must be the first to see her when she wakes.”

Mr. Keller turned to the doctor. “What does he mean?”

The doctor, standing back in the shadow of the house, seemed to have some reason for not answering otherwise than by gesture. He touched his forehead significantly; and, stepping out into the road, took Jack by the hand. The canopy of the hearse, closed at the sides, was open at either end. From the driver’s seat, the couch became easily visible on looking round. With inexhaustible patience the doctor quieted the rising excitement in Jack, and gained him permission to take his place by the driver’s side. Always grateful for kindness, he thanked Doctor Dormann, with the tears falling fast over his cheeks. “I’m not crying for
her,”
said the poor little man; “she will soon be herself again. But it’s so dreadful, sir, to go out driving with her in such a carriage as this!”

The hearse moved away.

Doctor Dormann, walking with Mr. Keller, felt his arm touched, and, looking round, saw the dimly-outlined figure of a woman beckoning to him. He drew back, after a word of apology to his companion, who continued to follow the hearse. The woman met him half way. He recognised Madame Fontaine.

“You are a learned man,” she began abruptly. “Do you understand writing in cipher?”

“Sometimes.”

“If you have half an hour to spare this evening, look at that — and do me the favor of telling me what it means.”

She offered something to him, which appeared in the dim light to be only a sheet of paper. He hesitated to take it from her. She tried to press it on him.

“I found it among my husband’s papers,” she said. “He was a great chemist, as you know. It might be interesting to you.”

He still hesitated.

“Are
you
acquainted with chemical science?” he asked.

“I am perfectly ignorant of chemical science.”

“Then what interest can you have in interpreting the cipher?”

“I have a very serious interest. There may be something dangerous in it, if it fell into unscrupulous hands. I want to know if I ought to destroy it.”

He suddenly took the paper from her. It felt stiff, like a sheet of cartridge-paper.

“You shall hear,” he said. “In case of necessity, I will destroy it myself. Anything more?”

“One thing more. Does Jack go to the cemetery with you and Mr. Keller?”

“Yes.”

Walking away rapidly to overtake Mr. Keller, he looked behind him once or twice. The street was dimly lit, in those days, by a few oil lamps. He might be mistaken — but he thought that Madame Fontaine was following him.

On leaving the city, the lanterns were lit to guide the hearse along the road that led to the cemetery. The overseer met the bearers at the gates.

They passed, under a Doric portico, into a central hall. At its right-hand extremity, an open door revealed a room for the accommodation of mourners. Beyond this there was a courtyard; and, farther still, the range of apartments devoted to the residence of the cemetery-overseer. Turning from the right-hand division of the building, the bearers led the way to the opposite extremity of the hall; passed through a second room for mourners; crossed a second courtyard beyond it; and, turning into a narrow passage, knocked at a closed door.

The door was opened by a watchman. He admitted them into a long room, situated between the courtyard at one end, and the cemetery at the other, and having ten side recesses which opened out of it. The long room was the Watchman’s Chamber. The recesses were the cells which held the dead.

The couch was set down in the Watchman’s Chamber. It was a novelty in the Deadhouse; and the overseer asked for an explanation. Doctor Dormann informed him that the change had been made, with his full approval, to satisfy a surviving friend, and that the coffin would be provided before the certificate was granted for the burial.

While the persons present were all gathered round the doctor and the overseer, Madame Fontaine softly pushed open the door from the courtyard. After a look at the recesses — situated, five on either side of the length of the room, and closed by black curtains — she parted the curtains of the nearest recess to her, on her left hand; and stepped in without being noticed by anyone.

“You take the responsibility of the couch, doctor, if the authorities raise any objection?” said the overseer.

This condition being complied with, he addressed himself to the watchman. “The cells are all empty to-night, Duntzer, are they not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you off duty, early or late this evening?”

“I am off duty in half an hour, sir.”

The overseer pointed to the couch. “You can attend to this,” he said. “Take the cell that is the nearest to you, where the watchman’s chair is placed — Number Five.”

He referred to the fifth recess, at the upper end of the room on the right, counting from the courtyard door. The watchman looped up the black curtains, while the bearers placed the couch in the cell. This done, the bearers were dismissed.

Doctor Dormann pointed through the parted curtains to the lofty cell, ventilated from the top, and warmed (like the Watchman’s Chamber) by an apparatus under the flooring. In the middle of the cell was a stand, placed there to support the coffin. Above the stand a horizontal bar projected, which was fixed over the doorway. It was furnished with a pulley, through which passed a long thin string hanging loosely downward at one end, and attached at the other to a small alarm-bell, placed over the door on the outer side — that is to say, on the side of the Watchman’s Chamber.

“All the cells are equal in size,” said the doctor to Mr. Keller, “and are equally clean, and well warmed. The hot bath, in another room, is always ready; and a cabinet, filled with restorative applications, is close by. Now look at the watchman, and mark the care that is taken — in the event, for instance, of a cataleptic trance, and of a revival following it.”

Duntzer led the way into the cell. He took the loose end of the string, hanging from above, and attached to it two shorter and lighter strings, each of which terminated in five loose ends.

From these ten ends hung ten little thimble-shaped objects, made of brass.

First slightly altering the position of the couch on the stand, Duntzer lifted the dead hands — fitted the ten brass thimbles to the fingers and the thumbs — and gently laid the hands back on the breast of the corpse. When he had looked up, and had satisfied himself of the exact connection between the hands and the line communicating with the alarm-bell outside, his duty was done. He left the cell; and, seating himself in his chair, waited the arrival of the night-watchman who was to relieve him.